..of course we all called him Father George!
Posted on 10/19/2004 2:10:15 PM PDT by Ed Current
Another Superman is dead. Not the Superman of my childhood, George Reeves, who was found shot dead by a German Luger in 1959. Although there was no note or other indication that Reeves had killed himself, the police ruled it a suicide. The actor, too identified with his TV role, had become depressed over his inability to find work. It was a sad end for an actor who 20 years earlier had made a tiny splash as one of the charming Tarleton twins courting Scarlet O’Hara. I was fourteen, and my friends and I thought it was funny. Superman killed himself. How? Jumping out a window. Forgot to flap his wings. And for decades, that is the way I remembered Reeves’s death.
Young people are callous, of course, but why should we care about the death of an entertainer any more than the death of some fellow-townsman whose obituary we read in the newspaper? I suppose one answer might be that we are made aware of entertainment celebrities and come to feel we know them, but we obviously don’t know them. Of course, if a favorite writer or singer dies, someone who has brought pleasure and insight to our lives, we are sorry at the loss, but few of us let the news interrupt a good meal or a boring ballgame.
Poets and songwriters are one thing, but how could anyone (except for friends and family) really care about paid entertainers who get rich pretending to be something they are not? Acting, for the most part, is the least noble line of work a man could take up. (For the sake of argument I exempt actors who devote their lives to classic drama.) Most of us, when we see film of middle aged women hacking and hooping over a dead Elvis (or dead Beatle), think there must be a great emptiness in these women, and not just in their heads.
I think I was more disturbed by the suicide of the TV Superman than by the agony and death of Christopher Reeve. Neither could act; neither starred in a decent movie, but at least George Reeves did not turn him into a symbol for all actors caught in the tragedy of type-casting. The other day, observing that I cared no more for the death of Mr. Reeve than for any derelict found dead in the alley, a young member of our staff retorted, "At least he tried to help people." Help people?
First of all, let us be clear about who Mr. Reeve was. He was not some hard-working schmo who saw acting as a means of escaping a life of want. He was the spoiled son of divorced litsy parents. He was a nice preppy kid—Princeton Day then Cornell—who got into pictures because of his good looks. Like most actors, his world was pretty much himself. The only sign that he cared about other people was the usual leftist student activism obligatory for people of his class and type: protesting war, protesting racism, protesting other people who never lived in Princeton or went to Cornell but were stuck trying to make the best of a bad situation in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, or a rice paddy in Vietnam. He was a perfect representative of the over-schooled undereducated liberals who have ruined our country.
Then, whammo, the rich kid goes out riding and cannot control his horse. Suffering from what should have been a fatal injury to his spinal chord, he suddenly discovers the reality of human suffering. His suffering. Naturally he becomes an advocate for all those who suffer what he suffered. And, not content with raising money for research and treatment for his problem, he had to go the extra liberal mile: Why not put all those unborn fetuses to something useful, something that could help him? Despite the paucity of evidence indicating that fetal stem-cell research is more likely to produce results than research on adult stem cells, our Cornell grad became the posterboy for recycling unborn babies. Rednecks used to display the bumper sticker, "EAT MORE POSSUM." Reeves should have had "EAT MORE BABY" on the back of his limousine.
I thought I was the only person who understood the implications of Reeve’s humanitarian advocacy, but my children told me of an episode of South Park (a show I refuse to watch) in which Reeve goes on Larry King to promote stem cell research. To make it clear I am not making this up, I quote from the synoposis of "Krazy Kripples" on tvtome.com. "Christopher Reeve shows that Stem Cell research has allowed him to raise his arms. Reeve illustrates how he gets Stem Cells to help him out, by taking a fetus and cracking the back of its neck open and sucking out the insides. It affects him immediately by giving him a greater mobility with his arms." Tasteless but to the point.
So while the rest of TVLand America is out mourning the death of this great actor and good friend of John Kerry, I’m going to watch Gone with the Wind for the 100th time and pay tribute to George Reeves: He had the decency to blow his own brains out instead of eating a baby’s.
Stem cell research promises great good and is a worthy scientific priority as long as we pursue it ethically. Obtaining stem cells from people without seriously harming people in the process can be ethical. However, obtaining stem cells from human embryos cannot be ethical because it necessarily involves destroying those embryos.
Necessary Next Steps:
Christopher Reeves was an excellent actor and made some good pictures. The article is creepy. If the author doesn't agree with his activism he should lay out his own case without attacking someone who just died. Let the man rest in peace. Even the ghoulish Reagan hating dems. knew enough to keep their mouths shut when he died. Of course the exception was Kerry, who pretended to grieve for Reagan, but then proceeded to take a number of cheap shots at him. This was the same technique he used for trashing Cheney's daughter - Using a superficial compliment to mask his cynical cheap shot.
So while the rest of TVLand America is out mourning the death of this great actor and good friend of John Kerry,
Speaking of SUPERMAN, not himself.
..of course we all called him Father George!
If the author doesn't agree with his activism he should lay out his own case without attacking someone who just died. Let the man rest in peace.
You have a good point. The same could be said of anyone who advocated the policies of Osama, Saddam, Hitler…
"The article is creepy. If the author doesn't agree with his activism he should lay out his own case without attacking someone who just died. Let the man rest in peace."
Yes; however it was the South Park episode rather than the author who made the ghoulish association between fetus-parts and strength.
Thanks! The REAL Superman!
Actually, he didn't make one movie with any original plot or decent dialogue. And if someone here is deluded enough to insist that the unwatchably soppy "Somewhere in Time" is good, I will personally come over and beotch-slap you back into reality by forcing you to watch "Monsignor."
"You have a good point. The same could be said of anyone who advocated the policies of Osama, Saddam, Hitler…"
I do not believe that someone who is advocating an issue can effectively persuade people to their side of the argument by beating up on the recently deceased.
Far from being persuasive, it merely seems cowardly and more likely to damage your own argument.
Cannibalising unborn babies is ghoulish.
ping.
Oh, my gosh. I participated in a "Most Romantic Movie" thread elsewhere. That sappy movie was named by SO many people. I watched it as a teen and thought it was horrible....
"eight years of moral darkness" are almost at an end.
Speaking about Reagan again:
"The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed ‘window of vulnerability,’ which we now know not to exist."
“If we don’t need the MX [multiple warhead ICBM], the B-1, or these other weapons systems ... [t]here’s no excuse for casting even one vote for unnecessary weapons of destruction, and as your Senator, I will never do so,” Kerry vowed.
moral darkness
That describes Kerry and Reeve very well.
" unwatchably soppy "Somewhere in Time"
my old pal xena.. no, I never saw it. 'monsignor' doesn't sound like my cup of tea either. 'remains of the day' was good. Can't beat Anthony Hopkins. I must admit that 'team america' also looks appealling.
You have to do a better job with the renaisance festival security enforcement, xena... like you do on FR.
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